Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday warned that the fallout from the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of BP’s oil spill during the summer could last until next year.

Shell is one of the largest producers in the Gulf and Simon Henry, chief financial officer, said that the company would be taking a charge of $59m (£37m) against its third-quarter results as a result of the moratorium.

The US Interior Department earlier this month issued new safety regulations and lifted the drilling ban, but Mr Henry said that cancelled drilling plans and expected delays in receiving new permits were likely to reduce the company’s output by 40,000 barrels per day next year.

Mr Henry said that Shell has rigs and equipment that it believes meet the new regulatory requirements and has submitted new permits to drill to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Typically, those permits used to take about 30 days to progress, said Mr Henry, but he added that he would not be surprised if they took longer for the first few wells in the wake of the BP spill.

“The moratorium and the delay to our drilling programme is an opportunity lost for Shell,” he said.

“We have seen 230,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production in the Gulf of Mexico in the first nine months of this year.

“That is 10,000 boe/d lower than it would have been without the moratorium.

“And although that moratorium has been lifted, we expect a knock-on effect on future production because of the drilling delays we have had this year.

“For 2011, we are currently expecting around 220,000 boe/d production in the Gulf, and that is around 40,000 boe/d below the plans that we previously set before the moratorium was put in place. There could be further impacts in 2012,” said Mr Henry.

Despite the problems in the Gulf, Shell cheered investors with higher than expected third-quarter profits and rising production overall.

Peter Voser, chief executive, promised that there is “more to come for Shell”.

Under Mr Voser, who took the helm last July, the company has embarked on an aggressive cost-cutting plan to improve efficiency while pursuing a big capital-spending programme to help reverse a decline in its production profile.

Thursday’s results, in particular a 5 per cent increase in oil and gas production, are the clearest indication yet that Shell is beginning to reap the benefits from its capital investment.

The company has been investing heavily in new projects including Canada’s oil sands, as well as in Qatar and the Gulf of Mexico. Jackpine, its oil sands mine in Canada, started production during the quarter and is the fifth start-up in a sequence of 13 new projects that are due to commence producing oil and gas by the end of 2011.

The company has also given the go-ahead to two new deepwater projects during the quarter, including a development in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr Voser has also been selling assets, shedding some less profitable refining and marketing businesses. Shell plans to sell between $7bn-$8bn of assets by the end of 2011, including some onshore oil and gas production in Nigeria.

Shell’s shares closed up 23p at £20 in London trading.

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